A special exhibit at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show will honour broadcasting legend Sir David Attenborough in his 100th birthday year, celebrating his profound impact on natural history.
The Bringing Nature Home display, designed by Dave Green for the Great Pavilion, will run from May 19-23.
It will showcase 10 plants, each reflecting a dominant gardening theme from every decade of Sir David’s life, chosen as “hero plants for wildlife”.
The exhibit will take the form of terraced houses, illustrating how gardens connect and form vital wildlife corridors.
Helen Bostock, RHS senior wildlife specialist, who curated the plant list, said: “Nobody has opened up the natural world better to the general public than Sir David Attenborough.”
“We’ve come a long way in 100 years, learning to appreciate both the diversity and fragility of life on earth. Wildlife conservation is something that starts at home, in the plants we grow and the gardens we cherish.
“Like Sir David, we want every child to experience the fascination of a bee visiting a flower, or hearing a hedgehog rustling through the undergrowth, made possible even in the hearts of our cities through our gardens.
“This year the RHS is championing biodiversity across all our activities and no more so than at this year’s flower shows.
The charity has chosen the following wildlife-friendly plants reflecting each decade of Sir David’s life, who turned 100 on May 8.
1. Armeria caespitosa ‘Bevan’s Variety’
Reflecting the trend for rock gardens in the Twenties, these were space-saving collections that could fit into the smaller urban gardens and carried a cachet of botanical scholarliness continuing the influence of Edwardian and Victorian collectors.
Armeria caespitosa ‘Bevan’s Variety’ was introduced in the early 20th century and gained RHS recognition in 1946. It is a direct link to alpine gardens of 100 years ago that is still widely grown.
2. White-flowered foxglove (Digitalis purpurea f. albiflora)
This is a nod to the preference in the Thirties for a cottage garden feel.
Plausible reasons include reaction to the formality and excesses of previous generations, nostalgia for ‘old England’, frugality with the Great Depression hardly over and boom in owner-occupied modest semi-detached homes with larger gardens.
3. Allium ‘Millennium’
In the wartime Forties, onions were in short supply as the seed-producing regions were in enemy hands.
This choice reflects the government and RHS call to the public to ‘dig for victory’ during the Second World War to produce food and save shipping space that was in short supply. Nowadays onions are cheap and plentiful but British gardeners have embraced ornamental alliums.
4. Centranthus ruber (red valerian)
The bombed towns and cities in the Fifties were still recovering from the damage wrought by war, with many bombsites awaiting reconstruction noted for wildflowers, especially fireweed (Chamaenerion angustifolium), nicknamed ‘bombweed’ at that time.
Fireweed is far too invasive, but red valerian, a Mediterranean plant remarkable for its colonisation of walls and buildings, is well behaved and welcome in gardens.
5. Erigeron karvinskianus
From the daisy family, it represents a symbol of the desire for peace, freedom and harmony central to the Sixties counterculture.
Their small size, ability to self-seed and grow in inhospitable situations and their pollinator value makes them one of the most prevalent, useful and important sustainable garden plants.
6. Achillea ‘Moonshine’
A garden relative of native common yarrow or milfoil (Achillea millefolium), this was an important plant for wildflower meadows that were favoured in the Eighties, with the Chelsea Flower Show featuring more natural meadow type flowers.
7. Corylus avellana ‘Contorta’ (corkscrew hazel)
The garden form of native hazel with intricate twisted stems and catkins reflects the interest in native plants and planting in the Nineties.
Hazels support more than 100 insect species and are a great way to bring wild plants into medium to larger gardens, or if potted into smaller gardens.
8. Malus ‘Red Sentinel’
The crab apple reflects the resurgence in fruit-growing for flavour and nutrition in the 2000s including crab apple jelly. Apples, including crab apples, are known to support a huge number of insect species and many lichens and mosses on their stems. As well as planting new trees, gardeners are urged to retain older apples where possible as they are rich in biodiversity.
9. Stachys byzantina
A water-saving choice with many other environmental benefits popular in the dry gardens of the 2010s, this one is a pollinator favourite, providing evergreen low-maintenance ground cover, is tolerant of air pollution and supports urban cooling by transpiring water and reflecting heat and light.
RHS research has demonstrated that its hairy, silvery leaves are unusually effective at trapping particulate pollutants, improving urban air quality.
10. Geum rivale
This native plant favours damp, even wet places, and is valuable for sustainable drainage plantings and flowers early, giving important support to pollinators.
Here it references the popularity of re-wilding, often with reintroduction of beaver in aquatic areas where this plant thrives, which has inspired gardeners in the 2020s.
RHS Chelsea Flower Show runs from May 19-23.
